Æ36 - Antoninus Pius ΕΠΙ ϹΤΡ ΚΛ ϹΕΚΟΥΝΔΟΥ ΕΡΥΘΡΑΙΩΝ

Erythrae was a coastal Ionian city that had long traded on its association with the Erythraean Sibyl, one of antiquity's most politically useful oracles. The magistrate named in this coin's legend, Kl. Sekoundos, served as strategos under the provincial governor during a period when Smyrna's conventus cities competed aggressively for imperial favor — minting large civic bronzes being one of the more visible ways to signal loyalty and local prestige. Antoninus Pius never visited Asia Minor, which gave these provincial issues an almost performative quality: declarations directed at an emperor who would never see the city that made them.